


mask er aid

by Volatilevore



Series: Emily's one shots [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Masquerade Ball, naruto kankuro and kiba are crackheads together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:40:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21569296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volatilevore/pseuds/Volatilevore
Summary: Temari drags Gaara and Kankuro to a work party, and Gaara meets Lee while Kankuro gets blackout drunk.
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Series: Emily's one shots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1382311
Comments: 3
Kudos: 63





	mask er aid

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be done by Halloween but I got sick and blah blah blah. But here it is, I'm in a different mood than I was when I started this so it kinda changes style halfway. I'm trying to write a winter fic now, but I figured finishing this would pull me out of my funk.

“Temari this is fucking stupid,” Gaara stepped over a puddle on the freshly dampened sidewalk.

“Your face is fucking stupid,” Kankuro huffed from behind Gaara, stepping over the exact same puddle. 

“Behave yourselves guys, these are all going to be people from my work,” Temari walked in front of her younger brothers, heels clicking with every stride she took, “you may never have to see them again but I do.” 

“If they’re from your work why do we have to go?” Kankuro whined like a child who just got told no.

“Because you won’t stop complaining about being bored, and Gaara’s a hermit,” Temari’s smirk soaked through her serious facade.

“Who’s idea was it to have a masquerade party anyways?” Gaara muttered under his breath fixing the mask on his face. He felt stupid walking in public with it on even if it was just a parking lot. 

“It was a collective idea you little shit,” Temari turned her head just enough so that she could glare at Gaara without taking a digger on the concrete. Her yellow mask was perched atop her face just right, allowing the moon to shadow her eyes making her look even more menacing.

Gaara just huffed fixing his mask again, that was going to get old real fast.

  
  


The moment the trio stepped into the hotel the party was being held at they were bombarded with signs directing them to the main ballroom. Gaara kept his head down, not wanting to look at any hotel staff in the eye. He wasn’t one for huge fashion risks, he didn’t even like cuffing his pants half of the time. The mask seemed like a fairly large leap from cuffed pants. 

Temari led them to the large ballroom in the center of the building. Right away Gaara felt less self-conscious about his mask. There were people in there with bright pink masks decorated with feathers and sparkles, and they seemed to be free of any judgment. 

Kankuro made a b line for the buffet table on the left side of the room. Gaara was just about to make his way there, but someone from Temari’s work spotted her and began a conversation. 

Gaara tried his best to shuffle away but decided it was too risky. It would be rude of him to just up and leave when this woman was talking to the person he came with. So Gaara just stood there staring at anything his eyes could find. 

There were banners hanging on the ceiling and curtains draped elegantly to the sides of the large windows at the back of the room. The lights were a mix of pale red and purple. There seemed to be some kind of fog in the air. It was most likely to give the effect of Halloween, seeing as it was about 5 days away. Temari actually mentioned that they were thinking of doing a costume party instead of a masquerade ball, but most of them didn’t already have a costume and it would be expensive to buy one for a work party. Gaara got his mask off of amazon for like 5 dollars, which is probably why it was tilting sideways every so often. 

Gaara found himself letting his eyes wander without conscience. He vaguely acknowledged the fact that they had alcohol in the far right corner. He wasn’t 21 yet so he couldn’t even get drunk if things went south. His eyes found themselves tracing out into the crowd of people. Temari worked with tons of people, and those people brought their friends, which doubled the number. He saw Naruto, already shit faced, leaning on a very sober-looking Sasuke. 

Gaara met Naruto once in high school when he was a freshman and Naruto was a sophomore. Gaara never expected Temari to tell him Naruto told her to ‘say hi to Gaara’ for him. But that’s exactly what she did after she got back from her first day on the job. 

Sasuke was actually an old friend from middle school he’d hung out with in art class. Quiet dude, kind of an ass when he did talk, but other than that he was pretty alright and helped Gaara with his art projects. 

Gaara’s eyes continued to scope out the people chatting and swaying to the music playing over the speakers on the ceiling. He was generally uninterested until his eyes caught a glimpse of bright green. It was sudden, but Gaara found his eyes frantically retracing their steps to find the vibrant color again. 

When they finally landed on their target, Gaara focused his vision. His eyes fully concentrated on the bright green mask they’d found. It wasn’t uncommon for the people he was surveying to have extravagant masks. They were cheap and fairly easy to decorate, so why not have a little fun with it? The thing that kept Gaara staring was the body bearing the mask. 

It was another man of a slightly larger build than Gaara’s. He wore a nice white dress shirt and grey pants. But his shoes were bright orange, almost the same color as a sunny D label. Gaara felt his eyes travel back up to the man’s face. His mask wasn’t large, but it covered more of his face than Gaara would’ve liked. Even with the mask, Gaara could see his eyes were quite large and bright. Sitting atop the mask were two eyebrows neatly trimmed into a thick arch. His hair was in a shiny bowl cut, it made Gaara wonder if it would take him longer to make it neat, or if he could just wake up like that.

Gaara only stopped staring at his hair because he suddenly shifted. His whole body was now facing Gaara, instead of seeing a side profile, Gaara got to see his whole face (Save for what the mask was hiding). But that blessing also came with a curse. 

The man’s eyes met his, he was now aware that Gaara was staring at him. 

Gaara felt his fingernails dig into his palm, an old habit he’d picked up in middle school and was actively trying to stop. His eyes darted up, then straight down. He only glanced back up to where the man was standing to see if he was still looking. But when he looked up, he wasn’t there anymore. 

Gaara felt relief wash over him, and he took the deepest breath he’d ever taken. Only to have the breath pushed out of him forcefully when he realized that man was now talking to Temari with the woman she was already talking to. Gaara couldn’t hold back the tiny cough he let out from all of that air exiting him at once. The man glanced over at him while he listened to the anonymous woman talk about future plans for the company. Gaara’s hands have him no warning before they moved, giving the stranger a thumbs up. 

Gaara’s mind screamed at him to stop, and basically just telling him to self destruct. 

Instead of combusting, Gaara’s other hand came up and pushed the defiant one back down. Gaara’s hands just held each other while he pretended to care about what his sister was saying. 

Temari and the woman continued their conversation while they made their way over to the drinks. That meant Gaara was driving her home. 

The man in front of him waved to them. Gaara wondered for a minute why he didn’t go with them, but his thoughts were cut short by the guy turning back to him. Gaara’s whole body went stiff, and his lips pushed against each other. 

The guy in front of him smiled and stuck his hand out. “Hi, I’m Rock Lee, but you may call me Lee, You must be Temari’s little brother, she’s told us much about you!” 

“Shit,” Gaara’s mind raced thinking about all of the things Temari could’ve said about him. 

“Huh?” Lee’s head tilted a bit, his smile still not dropping.

“I’m Gaara,” Gaara took Lee’s hand in his. The tips of his fingers tingled at how warm Lee’s hand was in his. He’d always had ice-cold fingers, so the heat of Lee’s was a welcome warmth. 

“So are you enjoying yourself?” Lee took his hand away from Gaara’s. 

Gaara felt kind of annoyed at the sudden lack of pressure. 

He saw no reason to lie, he was probably never going to see Lee again “I want to be at home.” 

“That is understandable, I’m not too fond of scenes where alcohol is present myself,” Lee’s smile went kind of crooked while he said that. He seemed nervous telling Gaara that.

“I’m 20, so I couldn’t even drink if I wanted to,” Gaara tried his best to ease Lee’s nervousness about the subject. 

“I just turned 21, but I do not think I’ll ever be trying alcohol again after my 21st birthday,” Lee laughed rubbing his hands together. 

Gaara gave his best ‘I’m trying to think of something to say without accidentally making a fool out of myself’ laugh. 

“So what do you-,” Gaara could feel his mouth move before he thought of what he actually wanted to say. Thankfully it was cut short by loud whooping and shouting coming from the middle of the room. 

Gaara had point five seconds to dwell on the fact that he almost asked Lee what he did for a living. At a party...for work. But he didn’t get enough time to let it sink in before he was painfully aware of his brother throwing it back in the middle of the dance floor with 2 other people. 

He instinctively looked away, after 20 years of living with his brother, Gaara had learned it was better to just ignore his behavior. 

“Is that Kiba and Naruto?” Lee leaned his body to the side to try to see past the people in front of him. 

A large circle had formed around the three guys, some with their phones out, others just laughing. 

“I don’t doubt it,” Gaara sighed rubbing his eyes. He didn’t know who Kiba was but if he was one of the first people Lee thought of when he thought of Naruto it was probably him. 

“Who’s the other guy?” Lee squinted his eyes, getting on his toes to try to see if the 3rd crackhead in the circle was someone he knew.

“I don’t know, anyways, what's your zodiac sign?” Gaara tried desperately to divert Lee’s attention from his brother and the others. 

“I’m a Sagitta-, oh hey Sasuke,” Lee looked over Gaara’s shoulder at the man behind him.

“Have you seen Naruto? I’ve been looking for that asshole for like 5 minutes, he just ran off,” Sasuke wasn’t visibly distressed, but he did have a worried tone to his normally bored voice. 

“Check the middle of the room where all of those people are gathered,” Lee motivated behind his shoulder with his thumb.

“Ugh,” Sasuke made his way over to the middle only stopping to talk to Gaara for a second, “oh, hey Gaara, you’re still short.” 

Gaara rolled his eyes at him, he was only like 2 inches taller than him. Sasuke turned on his heel, smirking. 

“I think you’re pleasantly sized!” Lee’s eyes closed in a genuine smile.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, nothing can top it,” Gaara was completely serious and he hoped his face expressed that. 

“I am glad!” Lee smiled putting a hand on Gaara’s shoulder for a brief second. 

Gaara didn’t flinch at the sudden movement, it was soft like it wasn’t even there. The only thing that was keeping Gaara from believing he imagined it was the warmth that radiated from his shoulder down his body.

Gaara was so close to asking Lee to marry him, but he decided against it. Instead he gave himself the goal of asking for Lee’s number by the end of the night, even if Lee refused, at least he could’ve said he tried. 

Gaara planned it out, right before he dragged his drunk family members out of a masquerade ball, he would ask for Lee’s number in the most nonchalant way possible. He’d play it off as if he was being totally hetero about it, like he wasn’t thinking about waking next to Lee every day for the rest of his life. 

The problem was he had no idea when they were leaving since his family members weren’t nearly drunk enough for Gaara to be able to handle them. They were just drunk enough to be loud and absolutely shameless, but they weren’t drunk enough to let Gaara buckle them into a car. 

“Leeeeee, LEEEE, oh my god Lee I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” a very visibly drunk girl staggered her way over to the two. 

As she got closer Gaara recognized her as the girl Temari was talking to an hour ago when they arrived. Which begged the question, where the hell was Temari? And who is this woman?

“I’ve been here talking to Gaara this whole time TenTen, you were the one who left,” Lee motioned to Gaara when he said his name. Which made Gaara stiffen, even though he was 90 percent sure ‘TenTen’ wasn’t going to remember any of this interaction in the morning. 

“Don’t you blame this on me you little bum,” TenTen tried to keep a straight face, but soon broke out into a laugh. 

“Ok TenTen let’s go find Neji and I’ll take you both home,” Lee put his hands up to stand her upright, keeping his hands on her shoulders. 

“Oh fun I love Neji,” TenTen reached out and patted Lee on the shoulder before staggering eagerly back into the crowd. 

“Thank you for talking with me tonight Gaara, I really enjoyed myself,” Lee rubbed his hands together, a bashful smile spreading across his face. “But I really should go find my roommates TenTen and Neji, they’re both probably just touching fingertips right now.”

“I really enjoyed talking to you too, I had a fun night for the first time in a while,” Gaara felt his fingernails stinging his palms again.

“Actually I was wondering if I could get your number, I’d love to get to know you better...or something.” Gaara’s jaw clenched shut and his eyes squinted a bit. 

“Of course! I was going to ask you, but I did not want to make you uncomfortable,” Lee had already pulled his phone out of his pocket. 

“You’re really nice and I just hope your charm doesn’t mean you’re a serial killer who is going to brutally murder and gut me,” Gaara tried his best to say anything but that, but he got distracted trying to type Lee’s number into his phone. 

“I promise I’m not, and if I do turn out to be, I’d never kill you, you’re too cute to kill,” Lee laughed while he put his phone away. 

“Well then hopefully we can see each other again soon,” Gaara was trying to reel himself in, he was getting too bold. 

“I hope so too,” through the purple and red lights, Gaara was almost certain he could see Lee blushing. 

“I should probably go find my sister and brother, good night Lee,” Gaara waved turning to the crowd to search for his family. 

“Good night Gaara,” Lee waved back turning to the opposite side of the crowd to go look for his roommates. 

Even as Gaara dragged his sister who had lost her heels in-crowd and his brother who was muttering something about a talking dog named Akamaru, he still found a soft smile plastered on his face. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I printed a bunch of pictures of Gaara and put them on a Christmas tree, I've peaked. I would post a picture of it here, but I don't know how, small brain.


End file.
